Luke Weil of Scientific Games Corporation Discusses the Future of Latin American Lotteries

The Latin and Central American regions have long been dominated by traditional manual draw lotteries and street vendor distribution of lottery products. In a recent interview with Yogonet, Luke Weil, Vice President of International Development for Scientific Games, asserts that the region has great potential for development.

The World Lottery Association reports that Latin America had an almost 16% aggregate increase in lottery sales in 2011, ahead of every other region. Scientific Games believes they can co-exist alongside additional points of sale such as convenience stores, supermarkets and prepaid mobile phone top-up locations, said Luke Weil.

A recurring topic in the interview is the role that technology will play in the expanding Latin American market. Weil asserts that advancing the regions sales technology while keeping a sense of continuity will be the key to further enlarging the market. Often, success has come from pairing more traditional games with new technologies and regulatory frameworks, said Luke Weil. For example, Scientific Games hybrid lottery product, which we first introduced in Ecuador, combines the traditional, pre-printed draw game with raspados, or scratch games, and it has been very successful.

It is clear that the rapidly growing number of people in Latin America with access to internet and smart phones will yield opportunities for lottery system development. In response to the question of lottery trends in the region, Luke Weil says, Looking ahead, we believe the trend will be to use the internet and mobile devices to deploy lottery products and services. He also expects that the trend for secure transaction processing will continue and accelerate.

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